In 1983, the Susquehanna University Football Team posted its third consecutive winning season, going undefeated through a 9-game schedule. The three year run began with a completely unexpected win against perennial conference powerhouse Lycoming College in the first game of 1981, and included an epic battle in 1983 between the same two teams that ended in a 3-3 tie. That game cost the Crusaders a spot in the then 8-team NCAA Division III Football Playoffs, but didn’t stop the Crusader football team of 1983 from putting an exclamation point one of “small-college” football’s most dramatic turnarounds, albeit one that remains a great football “story” seldom told.

Susquehanna University is a small, Liberal Arts College in Selinsgrove, PA. Its football team now competes in the Centennial (Division III) Conference, but “back in the day”, played in the Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC) North that featured perennial powerhouse Lycoming College. Susquehanna has a storied history in Division III football, including a number of years under “big name” coaches like Amos Alonzo Stagg and Jim Garrett. Recently, however, the Crusaders results on the gridiron had been very different, as the teams of the 1970’s posted only one season with more than 4 wins during the entire decade of the 1970’s. This decade of mediocrity made the turnaround that followed quite significant, if not “shocking”.

For new Head Coach Bill Moll (Moll took over the Crusader team before the 1978 season), things started slowly, with a 1 win season in ’78, 2 win season in ’79 and 3 win season in ’80. Progress, yes, but not enough to prevent a complete overhaul of Moll’s staff leading up to the 1981 season that left Moll and his only full time assistant, Secondary Coach Dapp returning. Like many Division III football programs of their time, the remainder of the Crusader football coaching staff was comprised of part-time assistants.

Defense wins Championships

Moll’s early teams struggled, but that changed dramatically between 1981 and 1983. As with many turnarounds in football, this one was yet another example of one of the nearly universal truths in the game – that “Defense wins Championships”.

These stats tell part of the story…

– Between 1981 and 1983, the Susquehanna University Crusaders put together a string of 3 Winning seasons in a row. Not a great feat necessarily until one considers that this came after 10 non-winning seasons dating back to 1970.

– The teams of this 3 year period won more than twice as many games as in any 3 year period in the previous decade.

– The teams won more games in one year (1981) than in the previous 3 years combined.

– The teams exceeded the number of wins in the first two years (13) as in the previous five combined (11), and won 3 times as many (21) as in the previous 8 years.

– Most importantly, the Defensive units of the Moll/Dapp era from ’81 to ’83 gave up less than half the points on average of any SU team in the previous 10 years.

Its not always the scheme, but this time, it had a lot to do with it

In his first year Defensive Coordinator (1981), Scot Dapp created a new Defensive scheme that deviated significantly from the simple defenses that teams of that era typically used. A multiple front, multiple coverage, attacking Defense, players were aligned in a different location on virtually every snap. Defensive stunts, blitzes and pass coverage adjustments were based on extensive preparation, and often on-field, “in-flight” adjustments made by the Defensive players, based on their thorough preparation and understanding of their opponent.

Every week, a new “package” was selected that showed a different look to the opponent on nearly every play. The play calls signaled in from the sideline were based on the Down and Distance tendencies of that week’s opponent – but its what happened after the ball was spotted, and the Offensive team lined up, that truly made the SU Defense of the early ’80’s unique when compared to their opponents and most defenses of their time.

Specifically, on each snap, the opponent’s Offensive Formation, Backfield Set and Motion triggered split-second, on-field, “automatic adjustments” by the Defense. Line slants were redirected, blitzes turned on and off or changed to a different blitz, and pass coverages adjusted based on the tendencies of the opponent to use specific plays – sometimes just a single play from an Offensive formation. Motion by the Offense played right into the Defense’s hands, increasing the accuracy of the Defensive play call, and often resulting in unblocked Defenders.

The Susquehanna Defenses held opponents to 207 points TOTAL in those 3 seasons for an average of 7.6 points per game. While that seems remarkable by today’s pass-happy, scoreboard-lighting standards, the 70’s and early 80’s was an era when Defenses often had the upper hand. Nevertheless, the ability to routinely hold opponents to fewer than 14 points per game was indicative of a winning season, and limiting opponents to fewer than 10 points per game often resulted in a spot in the National rankings, as it did for the ’81-’83 Crusaders.

Who has the Chalk last?

A popular saying that describes the “chess match” that occurs on each play in a football game between the Offensive and Defensive play callers is “he who has the chalk last, wins”. This is not necessarily true, however; particularly when on-field, automatic adjustments are made by the players, and the Crusader defenders of this era were consistently in a “chalk last” type of play call that often combined zone pass defenses with 6 and 7 man “pressures”. Effectively a “zone blitz” – a foreign concept in the game at the time, was accomplished by “burning” zones, instead of dropping linemen, as is the case in most modern (and “sound”) zone blitz schemes.

The thinking at the time was that by studying extensive amounts of information about an Offense’s tendencies, the risk inherent in this approach by a Defense could be easily mitigated. It also didn’t hurt that the typical Offenses at the time, particularly at this level of competition, often lacked the sophistication to react with, or the ability to execute their own “audible”. From the perspective of a Defensive coach, it was football at its purest, and a far cry from the game of “basketball on turf” that exists today.

With information at the heart of their strategy, the SU Defensive staff was quick to embrace computer technology, and, by the third year of the turnaround, computer “printouts” became an increasingly important component in the weekly game planning and practice preparation process. In fact, one of the first computer “programs” for personal computers, Easy-Scout traces its roots to the computer science classrooms and labs at Susquehanna, where Dapp’s assistant coaches spent Sunday evenings feeding the results of that day’s “film breakdown” session into the school’s “mainframe” – like HP 3000 computer.

The result of this effort – detailed tendency printouts that included “hit charts”, armed the Defensive staff with the information needed to create the game plan for the next opponent, “auto-adjustments” included. In addition, the “data” that supported their approach each week gave the staff more confidence than it would have otherwise had, and created a “fun” atmosphere for the players as they prepared each week, from the initial on-field installation during Tuesday’s practice session through the “expected” win on Saturday afternoon.

Preparation, film study, and knowing an opponent’s tendencies has never been more important than it is today.   Fortunately, technology continues to evolve and be available to those coaches and players who appreciate what it can do, and take maximum advantage of it.